Education: Primary and Early Years (Professional Placement Year)
Entry requirements
A level
A Level – grades BBB-BCC preferred.
Access to HE Diploma
Access to HE courses – typical offers for applicants with Access to HE will be the Access to HE Diploma or Access to HE Certificate (60 credits, 45 of which must be Level 3, at Merit or higher).
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
A minimum of 32 points are required.
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
BTEC – Extended Diploma grades from Distinction Distinction Merit (DDM) to Distinction Merit Merit (DMM) accepted in any subject.
T Level
T Levels – grade Merit preferred.
UCAS Tariff
We've calculated how many Ucas points you'll need for this course.
About this course
**A specialised bachelor degree in Primary Education, leading to a PGCE in Primary and Early Years.**
- Gain practical school-based experience from a Primary school placement each year.
- Benefit from our established partnerships with hundreds of schools across the South West.
- Tutors with a wealth of research and practice-informed expertise.
- Employability focused; on successful completion of the degree you will be offered a guaranteed interview for a place on our Primary PGCE.
This is more than a primary teaching course. BA (Hons) Education: Primary and Early Years sets primary education in a broader context of debates around education, professional practice, teaching and learning - both nationally and internationally. This bachelor degree in primary education is ideal if you intend to qualify as an early years or primary school teacher, and it helps formulate your professional skills and career identity through experience of working with children in schools. If you decide on a different career path, this award is flexible, and will provide you with strong academic skills to achieve your aspirations as a professional educator in any number of different settings. When you join this community of learning, you will benefit from practice-informed expertise and recent research in the Centre for Policy, Pedagogy and Practice (PPP), Centre for Research in Scientific and Technological Learning and Education (CRiSTLE) and Centre for Research into Equity, Inclusion and Community (CREIC).
**More about the Professional Placement Year**
A Professional Placement Year (PPY), traditionally known as a sandwich year, is where a student undertakes a period of work with an external organisation for between 9-13 months. The placement occurs between the students' second and third years of undergraduate study. Students can engage in up to 3 placements to make up the total time and are required to source the placement(s) themselves with support from the Careers and Employability Team.
Modules
Level 4 core modules:
- Introduction to Primary Schools.
- Education for Change.
- Changing Schooling.
- Working with Young People in the Community.
- Controversial Issues in Inclusive and Special Education.
- Educational History and Heritage.
Year one - the first year supports your transition to University, and introduces key concepts and skills that underpin the field of education. In addition, there are a range of modules that enable you to explore your interests in education as an agent for change. The core module offers an introduction to primary schools with an eight day placement, which will provide you with an immersive ‘live’ experience of life in schools.
Level 5 core modules:
- Issues in Education.
- Professional Practice in Schools.
- Understanding Classrooms.
Optional modules may include:
- Environment and Education.
- Education Inequalities and Social Justice.
- Literacy Learning in a Multi-media World.
- Supporting Learners with Additional Needs.
* Not all optional modules are guaranteed to run each year.
Year two - equipped with your development from the first year of study, you’ll consider more deeply the current issues in education, such as pedagogy, pupil voice, special needs, assessment and classroom organisation. You’ll undertake a second eight days of primary school placement, this time with a focus on developing your professionalism.
Level 6 core modules:
- Teaching and Professionalism.
- Education Dissertation Part 1.
- Education Dissertation Part 2.
Optional modules may include:
- Childhood, Reading and Children’s Literature.
- Health and Wellbeing in Education.
- Culture Creativity and Society, Perspectives in Arts Education.
- Social and Education Inclusion.
* Not all optional modules are guaranteed to run each year.
Year three - this is professional placement year.
Final Year - this year, the Teaching and Professionalism module prepares you for the PGCE. In addition, you will be able to carry out original research and pursue your own interests in an area of your choice and use your creativity and the skills you've gained so far to develop a classroom resource to address it. You'll also have opportunities to engage with PGCE staff and students; this eases your transition into initial teacher training.
Assessment methods
Coursework is designed to allow for creativity and innovation, alongside developing strong academic skills. There are no exams, and there are opportunities to complete a range of assignment formats including essays, group presentations, research-based reports, portfolio-based work and educational resource design. We’ll provide you with prompt feedback and give you regular guidance on how to improve your skills, knowledge and understanding.
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
The Uni
Bath Spa University
School of Education
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Education
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Education
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
When you look at employment stats, bear in mind that a lot of students are already working in education when they take this type of course and are studying to help their career development. This means they already have jobs when they start their course, and a lot of graduates continue to study, whilst working, when they complete their courses. If your course is focused on nursery or early years education, a lot of these graduates go into nursery work or classroom or education assistant jobs; these jobs are not currently classed as 'graduate level' in the stats (although they may well be in the future as classifications catch up with changes in the way we work), and many graduates who enter these roles say that a degree was necessary.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Education
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£16k
£23k
£23k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
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Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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